Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Paris, like every pretty woman, is subject to inexplicable whims of beauty and ugliness.
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If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.
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Women see everything or nothing according to the inclination of their hearts. Love is their sole light.
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If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way down.
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A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.
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This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.
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A deist is an atheist with an eye cocked for the off-chance of some advantage.
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Who shall ever tell how much an unmerited disfavor crushes a shy person? Who can ever depict the misfortunes of timidity?
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An ounce of courage will go farther with women than a pound of timidity.
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She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered.
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A great writer is nothing less than a martyr who does not die.
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Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer – Death has never forsaken any man.
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By and large, women have a faith and a morality peculiar to themselves; they believe in the reality of everything that serves their interest and their passions.
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The fashions we call English in Paris are French in London, and vice versa. Franco-British hostility vanishes when it comes to questions of words and clothing. God save the King is a tune composed by Lully for a chorus in a play by Racine.
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Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
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A beautiful book is a victory won in all the battlefields of human thought.
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Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.
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We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are.
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A rent in your clothes is a mishap, a stain on them is a vice.
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The Police and the Society of Jesus posses in common the virtue of never forsaking their enemies as friends.
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White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it; like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light.
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Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.
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It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.
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It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role.